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Saturday, April 18, 2009

Steroids for my Thesis?

Mentioned in the previous post, I could not decide on a tentative thesis for my junior theme. I'm doing my paper on planned communities, and after reading up on what is considered to be the first planned community, Levittown, I finally found some articles describing the social issues behind these Utopias. After reading a page on the University of Chicago's website, I noticed that Levittown's initial contract and signing agreement ensured that no "races other than Caucasian" were allowed to live there. Mentioned in the earlier post, I'm one step closer to bringing these social issues out in my junior theme, but I still can't prove that all people in these communities believe in this contract or are racists. Hmmm (I'm terrible, I know, but I still think the silent issues and "secret messages" of race and race barriers today are really interesting.) Maybe I should limit my thesis to the people who created these super-towns?
I'm not sure, but I received my main book in the mail today: "Building Suburbia" by Dolores Hayden, and it follows suburbia and planned communities from the 1800s to today, and it is mainly about the social issues surrounding this movement of "new urbanism". I hope this will provide a basis for my paper and my thesis so I can make up my mind! Until then, I'll be struggling to uncover info.

2 comments:

Judy Gressel said...

Carrie,
read the first chapter of this book online:
Fortress America
Gated Communities in the United States
By EDWARD J. BLAKELY and MARY GAIL SNYDER
Brookings Institution Press
http://partners.nytimes.com/books/first/b/blakely-fortress.html?scp=2&sq=gated%20communities&st=cse

This will help you map out the issues.

I see no evidence of sources AT ALL on Noodle Tools. What's up with that?

Carrie F. said...

I haven't shared them. Oops! I'll get on that